SPECTRE

2| ADDRESS NOT VALID

I ran over the tops of buildings, jumping from ledge to ledge. My talents don't only consist of hacking — I'm also well practiced in basic parkour and combat, though how well versed, I can't say.

You pick up a lot of skills when you've lived on the street for years. In fact, I'd only developed SPECTRE less than half a year ago.

Swift, silent, deadly.

That was my motto, and I never diverged from it.

My 'friend' wouldn't be very happy to see me. After all, last time, I did blackmail her into helping me escape from a gang. She seemed quite shocked when I revealed all that...sensitive information. Let's just say, she never noticed the great big hackable information-storing space in the form of her cyborg hand.

Not very cautious for a so-called FBI agent.

Especially one that dealt with hackers.

And one that could stop, or at least slow, the worldwide search for the SHADOW.

What was the SHADOW? The largest criminal hacking organisation in the world.

In case you were wondering, no, I wasn't afraid of them. But the problem was, the FBI could also stumble upon a few...imperfections in the system caused by my hacking and find out about me, and then I could be found out by the ones who wanted to kill me. It was very unlikely, since I didn't leave much traces for anyone to find, but I wasn't going to take a chance.

I vaulted over a pole and slid down a pipe to the ground. Drawing out another section of code from the air, I hacked into everything in a hundred-metre radius, infecting all the tech in the area with my SPECTRE virus within five minutes.

There was a glitch in the system, I noted disdainfully as I observed SPECTRE take over the lines of code. Someone hadn't programmed the system correctly. But nothing stops SPECTRE---it hesitated, paused for a moment, then delved into the coding, corrupting the program.

Soon, all the security coding was replaced by SPECTRE, glowing blue as an indicator that I had succeeded.

Honestly. An FBI agent needs better security systems than this positively pathetic one.

I snuck into the house. It was eerily silent, and the furniture was not in the arrangement I was expecting.

Strange. I checked the layout I'd saved again. It should've updated itself automatically, and there was no way the agent had moved out, because that intel also updated itself automatically.

But SPECTRE couldn't be wrong. It was impossible.

Suddenly, a burst of cold air rushed beside my ear, and my instincts went on high alert as I whirled around, facing three people, all dressed in black suits with neon stripes of blue, just about to hit me in the head with a heavy wrench.

The blow landed, the sound ringing in my ears, and I crumpled to the ground, seeing black spots dance before my eyes, and blacked out.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I slowly opened my eyes and blinked a few times, waiting for the blurriness to go away.

I seemed to be in a cube made of hologlass. If these bastards thought I couldn't hack into that and escape, they had another thing coming. Honestly, even glass was made of programmed electronics now. No wonder hackers have such an easy time.

I tried to get my hands free, but apparently they were tied up with an elastic material, quite probably PREXA fabric fashioned into a rope.

PREXA fabric had only been out in the market for the last two years, meaning that whoever had gotten their hands on this must be really rich or black-market dealers.

The problem was, the material was as stretchy as spandex and as durable as leather.

And not remotely technological.

Which meant I was stuck for now, unable to move my fingers to hack anything.

Where on Earth was I?